Jack Starr (born 1951) is an American heavy metal and blues guitarist and songwriter, born of a French mother and American father.[1]
Biography
He learned to play guitar by ear, copying the riffs of R&B records.[1] His first semi-professional band was Les Variations in France with future members of Trust.[1] In the U.S. Starr emerged on the rock and metal scene in 1981, forming, together with Joey Ayvazian, David DeFeis and Joe O’Rielly, the first incarnation of the heavy metal band Virgin Steele. The new band was selected in 1982 by Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records to appear on the label's compilation album U.S. Metal Volume 2.[2] The song Starr sent in for the compilation was "Children of the Storm". After only two albums, Virgin Steele of 1981 and Guardians of the Flame of 1982, Starr left Virgin Steele in 1983 because of musical differences with the band's front man and other main songwriter David DeFeis.[2][3]
Starr changed the name of his band to Jack Starr's Burning Starr and between 1984 and 1989 he produced albums, both solo and with the band. The music of those albums was classic American eighties heavy metal, a style between Poison and Metallica.[3] In 1989 the band dissolved and Starr joined short-lived bands like Strider and Smoke Stack Lightning.[4]
After a break, in 2003, Starr founded a new band called Guardians of the Flame, which released only one album, Under a Savage Sky.[5][6]
In 2006, Starr founded the Jack Starr Blues Band.[7]